designs,decorating,life

Hello! my name is Tamar, I am a jewelry and accessory designer behind Nest Pretty Things, we are a husband and wife team and sell online through our website and Etsy shops and wholesale to over 50 shops around the world, my husband Ronen manages the business side and I am the designer and maker.
We have a lovely studio in Burlington Vermont and live near by in Shelburne, a beautiful little village right by Lake Champlain, we now have three sons in college (24,22,20) and the sweetest cat Isabel.
I love to decorate (you will always find me working on some project or other), cook and garden (I wish our VT season wasn't so short) and travel.

Posts categorized "Vermont"

November 06, 2016

This year the Fall season was probably the most beautiful to date. A combination of super warm days well into the season with a drastic drop in the temperature create a display of colors such amazing colors that I simply can't stop taking pictures...the weather allowed us to take long walks and we are taking advantage of this as much as we can. Winter will be here very soon and for now, we are enjoying the fresh brisk air outside. Here are some of the beautiful

Here are some photos of the amazing foliage this year.

Our back yard in full color! I'm so happy I chose these colors for the shed, they seem to work in all seasons...

our street covered in leaves after the rain

Shelburne Farms is right down the road from us and our favorite place for long walks

Bay Park is also close, with beautiful wooded trails and views of the bay.

August 26, 2016

I love our summers here in Vermont, there's always a good reason to celebrate and when friends come to town what can be more fun then a dinner outdoors! our friend Ginny invited us to dinner out in her lovely barn and gardens, here is a glimpse.

April 11, 2016

Yesterday I received a phone call from my son Daniel who is a talented photographer, he was taking photos at an event that took place in a little barn behind a beautiful farmhouse out in the tiny village of Charlotte VT which is one village away from our home, he was excited by what he saw and made me promise to go and check it out, I was very intrigued, I knew about this shop in our village Chez Boheme that had amazing textiles and a wonderful story but they closed and I was sure they just moved on, they did! to the little barn in Charlotte! So went and met some really lovely and talented women and indeed the shop is amazing!!

visiting is by appointment only, checkout the website for more information and if you can't visit checkout the Etsy shop!

November 22, 2015

I love November, the beautiful serene landscape is full of washed out browns and greens, I love crunchy leaves under my feet and cool and crisp air that still allows you to go on long walks without absolutely freezing. The lake is like a mirror, a pale blue green calm and serene without a boat in sight. Ronen and I take long walks almost everyday, we love hiking down the LaPlattte Nature Park that sits right smack in the middle of our village behind the post office, or, we go up the trail and down the lake in Bay Park and finally our favorite, the trails at Shelburne Farms, all about 5-10 min. from our home.

Some news from home: we put final touches in or kitchen and dining room including a marble counter which we love

the living room couch is back in it's grey slipcover and the room feels nice and cozy with the wood stove burning

and finally, I gathered all the left over apples we've been picking and made a giant batch of apple sauce to give as gifts (left some for us of course, it was gone in a day...)

It's a super easy recipe, I've been making this since they boys were babies:

10 apples or more up to 15 (I use whatever variety I have at home )

1 tbs brown sugar (or more to taste)

1tsp Vanilla

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup of water

juice of 1 lemon

mix all ingredients together in a pot, cook until the apples are soft about 30 min., when the apples cool place in blender and blend until completely smooth.

August 16, 2015

We have been seriously suffering from a lack of space for some time now, with our boys all back home this summer, the two older ones just done with college and transitioning into their new lives and jobs, still not making enough money to rent and planing on traveling soon (our middle son) and one going back to grad school next fall (our older son) and our youngest in college still for the next three years, our home is like a train station/storage/dumping ground for all their stuff!!! ughhhh....I love it when the house is neat and clean and there are no messy parts anywhere...but alas that has not been the case for sometime now, it seems as though every time I get one room all cleaned up and sorted another room or space gets all messed up all over again, I know I should feel blessed, they love to live at home and and we all get along wonderfully and I do feel absolutely blessed! but the mess! Right now we are completely updating the downstairs bathroom, (blog post to follow when we are done) the laundry room is a disaster area and the garage....yikes...I won't even go into that! and then there are tons of guests in and out all year long too not to mention some serious photo crews that seem to love taking pictures of our home...the house just meeds to look less messy!

So we built a shed and we love it!

We found it on the Costco website on sale! it was a weekend sale and marked down by a lot, so lucky!! at first we thought of renting a mini storage but when we did the math we realizes that getting a shed made a lot more sense. Luckily I had an in house three generation family building crew here this summer, my husband's dad who is a contractor, my husband who is a fantastic DIY builder and fixer upper and our son Mikey who is studying Architecture at Pratt, a great way to get some hands on building experience for him this summer although he is not completely new to this and spent a few high school vacations volunteering and building with Habitat for Humanity.

The crew

Ronen on the left, Amnon (Ronen's dad in the center) and Mikey

We chose a shady back spot under a tree right by the veggie garden

building took about 2 weeks, it was no easy task (Ronen and his dad measuring out the platform)

the finished platform

The walls are up!

and roof

it then proceeded to rain for about 3 days and construction was halted

the doors installed and the shed is being painted, I chose white exterior paint with a red for the barn doors, black hardware and a dark slate grey ribbed steel roof.

the three generation "crew" putting in some last touches (I swear I didn't coordinate the color scheme here..)

next came the stairs made from an old piece of wood that was lying around the garden forever, we also chose heavy weight white vinyl lattice for the bottom, I would have loved to go with painted wood but the winters here are too harsh and the vinyl actually looks just fine.

look how cute! I am so excited!

last part was a little landscaping, I planted hydrangea and Salvia on the visible sunny side

May 19, 2015

I can't tell you enough how much I love the the spring season here in Vermont, the air is still a little cool, the green is so vivid it almost hurts your eyes, the birds are singing in the trees, I love to get the house ready for summer, I can finally put away the heavy coats and make room from light jackets and straw hats in the entry way

We move into eating light lunches on the weekends when we are home

I frequent our local nurseries, I have a few I love, this is one of them

We try to not cut the grass to short so we can enjoy the flowers and imagine we have a meadow in the backyard...

we take long hikes and breath in the air, we are so easy to please here in Vermont...just give us a warm day and it's absolute happiness...

around the house I am getting ready for the boys to come back home for the summer, Daniel (22) just graduated and got his BFA, he will be living at home for now, Mikey (20) is home for the summer, he just finished his second year of Architecture at Pratt in NYC, and Jonathan (24) is working in town and between apartments he will be off to do some traveling and exploring schools for his Masters degree so he will be living at home this summer too...we are a big happy family again, I am enjoying every second knowing this will probably be the last summer the boys will be all living at home together...

April 23, 2015

We are having a wonderful warm and fuzzy weekend with all three boys at home, the view outside the window is amazing, a blanket of snow is covering everything, so beautiful, we've been going on some hikes, doing lots of cooking, and basically just sitting around the wood stove together! I am so grateful for all of this.

We took a little afternoon road trip today, it was unusually warm, probably the last warm day of the season so we decided to go up north and do a little leaf peeping, we drove up to Warren through back roads, going up the mountain to take some photos, the views were amazing, the end of the season colors were in full glory of yellow, red and orange, so beautiful. We stopped for a delicious homemade currant scone at the Warren store (go up to the second floor for some of the best fashion and accessories in Vermont, it's my little secret...), from there we continued to Waitsfield to walk around the little village and through the back roads again we drove home stopping at Shelburne Pond taking in the most peaceful views ever. Bliss.

I was so inspired I made the yummy apple pie recipe that was printed on the lovely bag and what can I say it was the best apple pie I ever made!!!

The recipe is Nick's, who is the owner of Shelburne Orchards, with a few little changes made by me and some photos I took of the process, enjoy!!!

APPLE PIE RECIPE

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

CRUST (for one pie, two crusts)

2 cups of all-purpose flour

1 and a half sticks of cold butter

1/3 cup ice cold water

pinch of salt

Mix flour, butter (cut into 1/2" chunks), water and salt in a food processor, mix until the mixture starts to thump around, less than a minute. Cut the ball of dough in half and press down to form two discs, cover with Saran Wrap and place in the fridge to cool.

when the filling is cool (see bottom for the recipe for the filling) take the discs out, roll out the bottom crust, using plenty of flour on the rolling pin and on the dough. When the size is right (a 10" circle for a 9" pie), brush off the extra flour and set the dough in the pie plate. Roll out the top crust.

Filling:

8 good sized apples, peeled, cored and cut into 1/2" to 3/4" pieces (I used all kinds of apples I had at home)

trim away the excess dough, slightly wet the top edges of the bottom crust, pop on the top crust

pinch and trim the dough and work your way around the crust pushing the dough between your fingers to make a ruffled edge. Cut holes in the top of the crust for air escape (I am sure you can be a little more creative with your design then this...)

OK, now into the 350 degrees oven for 35-40 minutes.

If desired you can use this optional crust treatment at 15-20 minutes, I thought it really made a difference!

you'll need:

3 tablespoons butter, 1 egg white, sugar.

Soften the butter and mix with the egg white, if the butter is soft enough it can be brushed on the crust while it's hot. Brush it on the ruffles and all over the top of the pie after 15-20 minutes of baking, sprinkle sugar over this and return to the oven.

When the pie is done the crust will be slightly golden brown and the filling will bubble and ooze a little. You can also poke a fork into one of the holes to see if the apples are soft but NOT sauce!.